72  I  SEED WORLD EUROPE  I  SEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPE | OCTOBER 2026
GIANT VIEWS
By: Branislava Popov
EUROPE CANNOT ASK FOR MORE SOY 
WHILE UNDERMINING ITS MARKET
E
urope says it wants to grow more of its 
own protein crops. It wants resilient 
supply chains, less dependence on 
imported protein, more options for farmers 
and crops suited to a changing climate. Yet 
a recent policy proposal risked pushing in 
precisely the opposite direction.
The European Commission had pro­
posed classifying soybean oil as a high indi­
rect land use change risk feedstock under 
the Renewable Energy Directive. On 8 July, 
the European Parliament objected to that 
Delegated Regulation. It was right to do 
so. But the vote has not solved the under­
lying problem. The file now returns to the 
Commission, which must decide whether 
Europe wants a coherent protein policy 
or a collection of policies that cancel one 
another out.
ILUC (indirect land-use change) is 
meant to address a legitimate concern. It 
considers whether demand for crops used in 
biofuels could indirectly drive agricultural 
expansion into forests, wetlands or other 
land with high carbon stocks. Feedstocks 
classified as high ILUC risk face limits on 
their contribution to renewable energy tar­
gets.
Sustainability safeguards matter. So 
do robust data, transparent methods and an 
honest assessment of consequences across 
the whole value chain. The proposed clas­
sification failed that test.
That concern was not confined 
to seed companies. Euroseeds joined 
COCERAL, COPA-COGECA, Donau 
Soja, the European Biodiesel Board (EBB), 
FEDIOL, FEFAC and GAFTA in calling 
for the regulation to be rejected or with­
drawn. When farmers, traders, processors, 
feed manufacturers, biodiesel producers and 
breeders all identify the same risk, policy­
makers should pause before dismissing it as 
the special pleading of a single interest.
Soybean cannot be understood by 
looking at its oil alone. In Europe it is 
foremost a protein crop. Crushing pro­
duces both meal, used mainly in animal 
feed, and oil for food, industrial uses and 
biofuels. European soy expansion is driven 
principally by demand for meal, but pro­
cessing economics depend on both outputs. 
There is no separate oil bean and protein 
bean. Devalue one part and the entire crop 
becomes less attractive.
That commercial reality reaches all the 
way back to the field. If soybean oil loses 
an important market, European crushing 
can become less competitive. Processors 
may demand fewer European soybeans. 
Farmers may then be less willing to include 
soy in their rotations, even where agronomic 
conditions are improving and better varie­
ties are becoming available. Europe could 
end up importing more protein meal while 
congratulating itself on having adopted a 
stricter sustainability measure.
The contradiction is especially strik­
ing because soybean can help answer several 
European challenges at once. As a legume, 
it contributes to more diverse rotations and 
supports nitrogen management. It can help 
reduce fertiliser needs at a time when costs 
and external dependency remain serious 
concerns. It can also strengthen the domes­
tic protein base that Europe repeatedly says 
it wants.
Plant breeding is essential to making 
that promise real. Breeders are improving 
maturity, yield stability, protein content, 
disease resistance, lodging resistance and 
performance under changing weather pat­
terns. These gains require years of invest­
ment, trials, variety registration, seed 
multiplication and market development. 
They cannot be switched on whenever pol­
icymakers rediscover protein autonomy.
Breeding companies need confidence 
that improved soybean varieties will have 
a stable and growing European market. 
Policy uncertainty travels upstream. When 
a crop's economic prospects weaken, the 
incentive to invest in its next generation 
weakens too. Farmers will grow more soy 
only if it works both in the field and in the 
market. Breeders can help with the first. 
Coherent policy must deliver the second.
Euroseeds and its coalition partners 
did not ask Europe to abandon sustaina­
bility criteria. We asked policymakers to 
reconsider data transparency, methodolog­
ical choices and whether land expansion had 
been attributed correctly. We also warned 
that low ILUC certification is not a realistic 
escape route for many farmers because of its 
evidence requirements and administrative 
burden.
The Parliament's objection should 
therefore be treated as more than a proce­
dural setback for the Commission. It is an 
opportunity to correct a policy contradic­
tion. Renewable energy rules should distin­
guish properly between origins, production 
systems and real impacts. They should rein­
force Europe's agricultural, climate and 
food security objectives, not weaken one 
objective while pursuing another.
Europe cannot ask farmers to grow 
more soy, processors to invest in European 
capacity and breeders to develop better vari­
eties while simultaneously undermining one 
of the markets that makes the crop viable. If 
Europe is serious about protein autonomy, 
it must recognise a simple truth: the meal, 
the oil, the farmer, the processor and the 
breeder are part of the same bean.  
Editor’s Note: Branislava Popov is the 
Technical Manager Variety Registration and 
Seed Marketing at Euroseeds

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